Family escapes, loses everything

February 25, 2002|By Jeffrey Hogan

The four-member family and an adult companion arrived in the Gaylord area Tuesday with high hopes for a fresh start in a community where they once lived and where they still have friends and family. With all their worldly possessions packed into two early-model cars, the exhausted and hungry family had no sooner settled down for the night in the home located on Kellogg Drive in the neighborhood known as Arbutus Beach Highlands in Otsego Lake Township when their dreams - and nearly everything they owned -went up in flames.

"We came all this way and then to have this happen is just too much," said Francis Curtis, who traveled for five days from an economically depressed area in extreme southwest Washington state with his wife, Delores, their children, Clifford, 17, and Cathy, 16, and a friend of Delores'. "I'm just grateful we're all safe and nobody was hurt. That's all that matters. We'll just have to start over from scratch. What else can we do?" he commented the morning after the fire.

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To add to the anguish and in an odd twist of events, after running into Gaylord where they purchased about $100 worth of groceries at Glen's Markets, in the dark of night they mistakenly pulled into the wrong driveway and moved into a home other than the one they had agreed to rent. They moved into a mobile home, located at 6045 Kellogg, owned by Dave Hostman. They were supposed to have moved into 6161 Kellogg, three doors to the west. The mobile home also was owned by Hostman, who indicated the units were not locked at the time. "He told us it was the third place on the left, and that's where we thought we turned. It was an honest mistake. I don't know how we could have done that," said Curtis.

The fire, which was reported at 1:12 a.m., was apparently started after Curtis had placed and ignited two DuraFlame-type processed logs in the stove to take the chill out of the air as his family settled down to sleep. He was unaware the wood-burning stove was not functional and the chimney apparently had been blocked, possibly by a squirrel's nest. "Right away smoke began filling the place so we knew something was wrong. We put out the fire in the stove, but it got into the ceiling and then it was gone," said Curtis.

"We all got out, but we lost everything we just unloaded into the place," added Delores, a 1975 graduate of Gaylord High School. She has been hired at Tendercare Gaylord where she will work as a nurse's aid, though she lost all her clothing, including her nurse's uniform.

"I can't believe how fast the fire went. I don't ever want to go through another fire," she said, while wiping back a tear from her watered eyes. "This has been terrifying. We lost everything we had in only a few minutes," said Delores, standing Wednesday inside the kitchen area of the original home Hostman intended to rent them. He allowed the Curtises to move right in, and so in the day's freezing rain they moved in what little was left in their vehicles.

Lamented Hostman, "No one was hurt. I'm very happy about that, because I can replace the home but you can't replace people." He said he will move another mobile home onto the burned-out site in the spring. "At this point, I still don't know how they went to the wrong place. It's all pretty strange," said Hostman, owner of many rental units in Otsego County. "It happened, and everybody is OK, so we'll go from here."

The home the Curtises are now in has no wood-burning stove. Hostman said he never mentioned the stove at 6045 Kellogg was not functional because that was not the home the family had agreed to rent. He said he has receipts proving their agreement. "I would have no need or reason to mention the stove, because it wasn't in the place we were talking about."

By the time the first truck arrived from the Otsego Lake Township Fire Dept., flames already were through the roof and rolling out the windows. The Otsego County Fire Dept. (Gaylord) was also called to the scene under mutual aid to assist with manpower and tanker trucks.

Showing signs of smoke inhalation after entering the burning home several times as they tried to put out the fire, Francis, Delores and her friend were transported to Otsego Memorial Hospital by ambulance where they spent several hours in treatment and observation.

Problems began for the Curtis family nearly as soon as they set out on Valentine's Day to make the 2,600-mile, cross country move to Otsego County. About 200 miles outside of Longview, in the shadows of Mt. St. Helens, where unemployment is running in double digits as the result of closures and reductions in the timber and paper mill industries, they blew the engine on their van and were forced to purchase another vehicle to continue the trip.

"This whole thing has been unbelievable right from the start, but we're here and we're safe, so we will just have to start over and make the best of things," said Francis.